


Something in the Head

by norgbelulah



Series: Something Monstrous [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Double Life, Hatless, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mindfuck, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:49:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that things are different for Raylan, he tries to stay away from trouble.  Namely, his ex-wife.</p>
<p>Needless to say, he isn't very successful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something in the Head

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the usual suspects. ;)

Raylan tried very hard to avoid Winona.

He wishes now that he’d been a bit more successful. A man named Wynn Duffy is pointing a gun at him in a strip mall office with wood panelling and the head of the Dixie Mafia is ready to cower under his office furniture.

None of this would have happened if he hadn’t over-thought it. If he hadn’t tried to figure out what he _would have done_. Not what he wanted to do.

He wanted to stay the hell away from her.

He remembers--before--going to see her at her house in Lexington, scaring the shit out of Gary, but not really why he did that. A lot of his memories right before he saw Boyd again and Boyd kissed him are sort of strangled, limp little things, that don't mean much to him in the grand scheme now. 

He supposes that Winona saw it differently, because she kept on talking to him, even after he backed off.

She said hi to him in the hallways and the elevator. He spared her glances and made noises in return, but over the weeks following his return to Harlan--and he always thinks of it that way, not to Lexington, or Kentucky, just Harlan--a little furrow appeared in her brow, and she would look at him like something was wrong.

"What is up with you?" she hissed, not angrily, just annoyed, when she caught him alone on the way down one day. "You can't be mad _I_ was mad you broke into my house."

"I ain't mad," he told her mildly. 

"Then what's your problem?"

His problem was he didn't want to talk to her. She made him think about something other than Boyd, other than his kiss, the sharp kind, the kind he wanted again, and couldn't wait for.

" _Raylan_ ," she touched his arm and he jerked away. "What the hell?"

He shrugged it off. He knew he needed to do that. "There's no problem," he said. "I just didn't think we were friends."

She jutted her jaw in the way she used to say she learned from him. He didn't know why he suddenly remembered that. He walked quickly out of the elevator when the doors opened, and he didn't turn to see the expression on her face.

Two months later, when Raylan had just gotten back from a weekend away, where Boyd had kissed him three times and he'd spent at least 24 whole hours in a blissful haze, Winona approached him at his desk.

"You look chipper," she'd said. He'd been smiling down at some paperwork.

He looked around, realizing it would cause more attention than he'd like if he just asked her to go away. "Can I help you with something?" he asked instead and she blanched at his too polite tone. He made a face. He really didn't know how to talk to her anymore. He suddenly felt like something was wrong, but he raised a hand to his neck, to where Boyd had kissed him again, "so the mark never goes away," and he felt better.

"I wouldn't ask, Raylan, unless I had anybody else to go to," she replied stiffly. "Can you just," she tossed a scrap piece of paper on his desk, "run those names in your databases for me?"

He looked down at them and already half-recognized one as possibly linked to some mafia activity he'd been reading in a FBI report before he'd left. He frowned at her, looking up, he knew that she knew it was illegal for him to do that. "Where did you get this?"

She looked away. "Just--Gary's been acting real weird. I didn't--I _hate_ snooping, Raylan. I'm not that person." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I never did that to you." Raylan is pretty sure he never gave her cause to do such a thing, but he felt so removed from their marriage at that point, he wasn't sure he could really comment. She gave him a look like she was disappointed he didn't rise to the occasion. "But, he's scaring me. So, can you please just check out these names? Please?"

He didn't see any alternative. He didn’t want to, but he paused to think what he would do if things were how they used to be for him. He’d want to help her. Boyd had told him to act like nothing was different.

He told her he'd do it.

He avoided talking to her about it for a few days, which was probably a mistake, seeing as the guys on her list were pretty bad, specifically Wynn Duffy, the asshole Raylan is currently looking down a barrel at, who had also gone to see Winona in her home to threaten her husband.

Now, Raylan hadn’t liked at all hearing about that in the seedy bar where they’d decided to meet after work one week later. 

There were assholes sitting next to them, talking loud shit about a woman and her kids and Winona was looking at him like he ought to do something, also like she was about to cry, seeing as a mafia enforcer had broken into her home. Raylan stood up and quietly put the fear of God into them with his badge and holstered weapon. Then he thought, what he hell, and bought them a round so it’d stick.

She was staring at him when he came back over to her. “What?” he asked. It seemed like that’s all he was asking people these days.

“The man I knew would have said something deadpan nasty and got into a fight with those men,” she said, searching his eyes.

He frowned at her. “You want me to do that? I can go back over there…”

“Jesus, Raylan,” she giggled, almost nervously. “No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m all over the place about this.”

Raylan took a breath and said, mostly because he figured it was what she wanted to hear, “Don’t worry about it just yet. I’m gonna look into this some more. Art said I could take some days if I needed. I’ll take one or two,” or three, he thought and go see Boyd again, she made him feel stretched so thin, “and get this sorted out. All right?”

She made noises like he didn’t have to take that time or it wasn’t his concern, but he shot back at her that she’d pulled him into it so he might as well. When she snapped her mouth shut and looked more than a little hurt, Raylan knew he’d misstepped again, but didn’t really feel like saying sorry either.

“Thank you, Raylan,” she’d said stiffly and he didn’t see her again until she made him go over to her house to get her so those mafia guys didn’t come with plastic bags to kidnap her.

Raylan had been at the end of his patience. He knew she knew that look but she refused to leave until he told her what was going on. So he did. He straightened up and he glared coolly at her as he said, “Winona, your husband made a real shit investment with the head of the Dixie Mafia. He’s got a severely unstable enforcer, that’s that Wynn Duffy guy that you met, who’s gonna come here and hurt you if Gary doesn’t give him the half a million that he owes tonight. So, for your safety, I’d like you to come with me. They’re coming here. Like, right now.”

Her hands were over her mouth and there were tears in her eyes. “Yeah, all right,” she said quietly and he followed her out the door.

In the car, she cried softly for a minute, and he looked straight ahead at the road until she stopped. She kept sneaking him glances and slowly her expression turned more disturbed than upset. Then she started talking about Gary and his grand plans and all the dreams he had. 

“I ain’t sure that’s something to admire if it’s all gonna come down on you,” he told her.

“You must be loving this,” she laughed bitterly.

“I assure you, I am not,” he said.

“You know you asked me once, why him,” she said, though Raylan doesn’t specifically remember a time when he’d done that, he does remember wondering, a lot, about it. So he supposes he must have. “That’s why.” 

He’d pulled up to his place at that point and so was able to turn to her directly. “This may surprise you, Winona, but I am so sure, I am absolutely certain that I do not care anymore, at all, about why. Now, you asked me to help you save your husband’s life and I’m guessing your marriage too, so why don’t we drop this so I can go do that?”

“What happened to you?” she blurted. There was more hurt and fear in her eyes than he ever remembered seeing before. “What the hell happened to you, Raylan?”

He thought immediately, _Boyd_ , but he frowned, because this didn’t seem better, not the way she was looking at him. But he couldn’t say that. He really couldn’t. “Nothing,” he murmured. 

Her mouth made a hard line. “Yeah? Well, I really hope you can pull this through, Raylan, but I guess either way you never have to talk to me again, all right?” She slammed the door on her way out of the car and he sped off like she was chasing him.

He'd used a similar scare tactic to get Gary to man the hell up and come with him into this shitty little office, but now he's thinking all of it--the whole mess--was a complete and utter mistake on his part, because he's unarmed and there is a gun pointed at him and everyone else besides Gary in the room is armed and pointing guns in all directions.

This is how you catch a bullet and die. He thinks, very specifically, that Boyd wouldn't like that. Raylan really wants to avoid it.

As the shots ring out, he pushes Gary down towards the ground until they subside and everyone's been hit or taken cover. Gary, the somewhat heroic idiot, tackles Wynn Duffy until Raylan can snatch his gun up. When Duffy gets a solid hook to Gary's already tender face, he scrambles for Billy Mac's--his former featherweight body guard who'd been tailing Raylan around for the past 24 hours--piece, but Raylan kicks it away and savagely grinds his heel into the asshole's hand.

"Thought that would be a good idea, didn't you?" Raylan grumbles, not feeling particularly witty. He calls it in and waits for the squad cars to roll up. He wonders, vaguely, what Art's going to say about all of this. He wonders, far more worriedly, as he palms the kiss at his neck, what Boyd will do.

There's a wealth of ambulances that show up along with the squad cars and Raylan has to endure the alien touch of rubber-clad fingers, as they check him for injuries. He knows this is standard procedure, but he's having a hard time suffering it.

He catches Wynn Duffy's glazed eyes on him from a stretcher they're waiting to roll out. They're rolling up his sleeve to take his blood pressure and Raylan remembers too late about the kiss on his forearm.

"That looks nasty," the EMT murmurs and Raylan looks sharply at her.

"Got a...a little carried away in the bedroom," he says, smiling his best charming smile at her. She blushes and Raylan's eyes wander back to Duffy.

Duffy is grinning at him, almost maniacally. "I know that," he says, too loudly. He starts laughing. "Oh shit. Who is it?"

Raylan stares at him in horror.

"Oh, Marshal," Duffy is still laughing. "Tell me. Come on. Tell me who gave you that."

"All right, all right," another EMT says. "We're going."

They start to roll him out, but he sits up, grabbing at Raylan's arm. Raylan goes, only so they won't hear. " _Tell me_ ," Duffy spits. " _Who is your Master?_ "

Raylan's eyes widen. He almost says. It's like the words are being pulled from his mouth, right from his head. _Boyd. Boyd. Boyd. Boyd Crowder._

But they pull Duffy off him and roll him away and Raylan collapses to his knees with his mouth clamped shut. His hands shake as he takes out his phone--the burner Boyd gave him--and types out, too slowly, _S.O.S._

He lets Gary figure out how the hell to get home. He texts Winona too that everything is fine, so he doesn't have to see her. She must take a cab back to her house, because she's not there when Raylan gets back to his room.

He’s thinking of a time, maybe a couple weeks after Boyd first kissed him, Art called him into his office at the end of the day.

“So, are you settling in?” He’d asked, pouring two fingers of something pretty nice for each of them into glasses he’d set out already. “You seem distracted. You seeing somebody?”

“Not really,” Raylan answered, lying. “Why do you ask?”

“Raylan, I knew you when you were married, but I’m pretty sure you’re the kind of man who’s _always_ seeing somebody,” Art said, handing him a glass.

They raised them slightly and Raylan took a drink because he felt like he had to. He didn’t like it so much anymore. He did it sometimes, so he could sleep if sleep wasn’t coming. But it always made his mind wander in a way that didn’t seem...productive. And by that, he supposed, he meant in a way that Boyd wouldn’t like.

Art was looking at him funny, and he thought maybe he should say something, but nothing came to mind that seemed appropriate, so he sipped at his drink again, and waited.

“Raylan, I’m not gonna lie. You seem really different to me and you didn’t so much when you first arrived here. Wasn't ‘til after you came back from Harlan you seem--”

“What?” Raylan asked, really wondering. Maybe he could fix it, could make things seem more normal. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing wrong.

Art just shook his head. “Did you see your father down there, Raylan?”

Raylan’s eyes widened. “No,” he replied. “Honestly, Art, I’m fine,” he tried to reassure. “If there’s something you want me to do different--”

Art was shaking his head. “Listen, son, Dan Grant told me you’re a good Marshal--when you aren’t trying to shoot your way out of a wild west picture--but that you’re a handful and you toe the line constantly. That I’d have to watch you. And that’s real consistent with what I remember from you in on the range in Glynco. Don’t call me a liar here. But that’s not what I’m seeing from you now. Raylan, I’ve never seen you so focused--and that’s fine,” Art said, raising his hands like Raylan was ready to point a gun at him. “But can you...just give me a hint what spurred on this change?”

“Art,” Raylan shrugged, hoping confusion was going to smooth this over well enough, “I don’t know what to say. What do you care anyway? I’m doing all right here. I’m doing my job.”

“Raylan, I goddamn care because you’re my goddamn marshal and you used to be a good goddamn friend to me, is that all right with you?” Art seemed mad now and Raylan was at a loss as to how he was going to fix it.

“Seriously,” he said, setting down his glass. “Everything’s fine. I’m…” he hesitated and tried to put a little more irony into his voice. He pushed for something that seemed real far away right now, something that was going to convince Art he’d just been off for a bit, long enough, that the way he is now--the better way--becomes the norm. “I’m turning over a new leaf,” he said, smirking. “You want me to be shootin’ at people and sleepin’ with witnesses. I could fuckin’ do that, Art.”

“Jesus, no,” he protested laughing. “Dammit. Just let me know, if things are getting to you. Dan told me about Nicaragua, and the Tommy Bucks shit. I get it, Raylan, I really do,” he said. “You need some time, you take it, all right?”

Raylan felt so far away from Nicaragua and Tommy Bucks it was almost laughable. He was beyond it. He’d risen above. He thought of Boyd and let himself smile. “I’m fine,” he said and he felt like Art finally believed him--although in a way that made him think he’d be having this conversation again inside a month.

At the time he figured that was fine too. It would keep him on his toes and hopefully out of too much trouble.

Apparently not, he thinks now.

He takes out his Jim Beam, left long enough to gather some dust, and pours himself a generous glass.

Boyd never uses that word, the one Duffy said. Master.

It makes Raylan shiver and not in the way he's come to like. It seems wrong, not better, and he thinks about Winona's face, how she _never_ looked at him that way before. Not once, even when she was pissed about how angry he was, not after they split, not when she saw him again.

He turns towards the mirror and looks at his own reflection. He sees that the circles under his eyes, cut deep from all the blood Raylan gave Boyd, have faded. Boyd didn't want to take so much--he'd said that--but Boyd loved him. He'd said that too. And Raylan hadn't minded. The words _give_ and _take_ fight in his mind as he looks at those shadowed circles.

He takes off his tie and shirt and looks at the kiss--the bite--that's what it is, isn't it?

He doesn't touch it. He thinks that always makes him feel better. He doesn't want to feel better right now. He wants to think.

He remembers Winona's question. What happened to you?

He remembers Art's concern. You seem different.

He picks up his phone, not the burner one. His hands move automatically. He doesn't want to think about this.

She picks up on the third ring. "Hey, is everything still okay? Gary said--"

"Something did happen to me," he blurts. He thinks he sounds scared. He doesn't mean to. He stops abruptly.

"Raylan?"

Now he's thinking about Boyd. He texted Boyd. And now he's calling her?

"I'm sorry. This was a mistake. Please don't--" he fumbles to hang up the phone, unable to even finish the sentence.

Shit.

She comes over right away.

He opens the door to her, only to begin to say, "Winona, please--"

But her eyes fall right to the mark at his neck. It still looks red and angry, even a week and a half later. "What the hell is that?" she asks, pushing past him. He doesn't want her to touch him, and certainly not the mark, so he backs up and away from her. "Raylan," she says, staring at him like she doesn't even know him anymore. "I can't believe I'm asking you this again today--what the hell is going on?"

He starts shaking his head. "I shouldn't have--I can't tell you. He's going to--" Raylan shuts his mouth quickly. He wants to talk to her. He wants her help. Something did happen to him. Something not as good as he thought it was. He is different, and maybe not better and he's so scared.

"Who is going to do what?" she asks softly. "Raylan, you're really scaring me."

He blinks at that. He feels himself wake up a little bit, level off from his spiral of fear and confusion. There's no way she should be here right now. Boyd is on his way. He must be.

He clears all the emotion from his face. His mouth becomes another thin line. "You need to leave. I shouldn't have called you here," he says. "Please go."

The door, which had been left slightly ajar, pushes in now, and Raylan feels him before he hears his voice, before he sees him step softly into the room, and say, "Oh, no, no, no. I think everyone should stay right where they are."

_Boyd_. Dear God, Raylan nearly pitches to the floor.

Winona's eyes are wide and uncertain, but Raylan is ready to shit a brick. She needs to get out of here.

Boyd smiles at him and he almost feels better, but Winona is still there and he--

"Hush now, baby," Boyd says softly. "Your blood's pumpin' so fast I can't hear myself think. I ain't mad, so calm yourself."

“Raylan, who--” Winona asks, but Raylan’s eyes are on Boyd who is reaching out to him, and he doesn’t hear if she says anything else. Boyd’s cool hand lights fires across Raylan’s skin, starting where he touches him, just below the mark, the kiss, the first of the sharp kind.

Raylan lets out a breath.

“There now,” Boyd croons to him.

“Jesus, who are you?” she asks directly. It’s probably for the best. Raylan is only looking at Boyd now.

“Raylan, tell her.”

“Boyd Crowder,” Raylan answers fast, because Boyd said. “From Harlan. W-we dug coal together when we were nineteen.”

Boyd rubs his cold fingers across Raylan’s skin, lightly. He shivers. “Anything else you’d like to add?”

“H-he’s a shitkicker crime lord in Harlan.” Raylan forces himself to look at Winona. She looks horrified. She should, Raylan is somehow still thinking. She’s a smart pragmatic woman. Her eyes spring from Boyd’s hand to Raylan’s neck to Raylan’s eyes. She meets them when he grinds out, “He’s a monster.”

Boyd laughs and Raylan wonders how he ever loved that sound. But then he thinks about how he still wants it and he doesn’t know which is really better. He looks at Boyd again, confusion plain on his face. Boyd continues to smile. “Oh, Raylan,” he says. “You’re a treasure, I tell you what.”

He turns to Winona then and tilts his head at her, inquiring, “You must be his famous ex-wife?”

Raylan sees that she’s made the mistake--he remembers now he shouldn’t have done it--of looking into Boyd’s eyes. He thinks it’s quite brave of her as she answers like he’s pulling it from her mouth, “Yes. Winona Hawkins.” She looks terrified.

“Raylan,” Boyd says, and Raylan reaches, unthinking, for his arm, at the wrist of the hand that’s still on him. They’re both warm now and it feels real nice. “This is one beautiful woman. My goodness.”

Raylan blinks. Something is--

“Why are you here, Winona?” Boyd continues, very calmly. He hasn’t looked away from her.

“Raylan saved my life tonight,” she tells Boyd in a strangled tone of voice, as though she didn’t want to. “I asked for his help. He saved my husband’s life too.”

“That was very magnanimous of him,” Boyd says, turning back to Raylan, whose whole body seems to welcome the attention. He closes his eyes and makes a soft noise that somewhere in his mind he hopes Winona can’t hear. “But what are you doing here right now?”

Winona is breathing hard and her hands are trembling. Raylan wants to tell her not to fight so much. He blinks his eyes slowly, feeling each of Boyd’s fingers slide back and forth across his collarbone. But then he thinks, she shouldn’t be here, she should--

“He called me,” she says weakly. “He sounded...I’ve never heard him sound like that.”

Boyd lets out a soft laugh of pleasure and Raylan doesn’t understand it. “You’re fighting me, baby,” Boyd tells him, letting him stumble closer. His other hand cups Raylan’s cheek. “That’s wonderful.”

Raylan makes a sound of confusion. Winona begins to sob. “What the fuck are you doing?” she cries. 

She could do that because Boyd’s looked away from her. Raylan can fight because Boyd’s far away from him so much. Suddenly, Raylan wishes Boyd were closer, that he could be near Boyd all the time.

It would be so much easier.

“I’m glad you took off your shirt, Raylan,” Boyd says, smiling. “Easy access.” His hand slides up now, and over the kiss, the mark left by the sharp kind, and it burns white-hot at his touch.

Raylan breathes fast release, letting it roll over him in a flash flood of cresting desire. He cries out and his legs lose all their strength. Boyd is holding him up by his neck. 

“Oh, beautiful,” Boyd murmurs.

“D-did he just _come_?” Winona breathes, horrified. “What the--”

“Are you scared, Winona?” Boyd asks. His voice is quiet, thoughtful.

She swallows. She’s still looking into his eyes. “Yes.”

“But you don’t want to leave,” Boyd says. “I can tell.”

There are tears falling from the corners of Winona’s eyes. “Something’s wrong with Raylan,” she says, voice shaking. “H-he said something happened to him...and--”

“And?”

“I-I think it was you.” Her gaze hardens somehow on Boyd and Raylan suddenly remembers why he loved her. She could be fearless, just like Boyd was--still is. Raylan’s head is spinning. She asks, “What the fuck are you?”

Boyd smiles at her and Raylan sees her stance ease somewhat, the furrows in her brow smooth just a little. 

Raylan shakes his head, no, he wants to say, please no, to Boyd, but he can’t form the words. Boyd’s hand curls around his jaw and he pushes him forward, just a few steps so Raylan is sitting on the bed. A strangled little whine escapes from his throat when Boyd’s hand falls away from the kiss, but Boyd looks down at him fondly and says, “Hush now and pay attention.”

He starts to move towards Winona, who has pushed herself back against the wall. Raylan, breaks through the wall of desire he’s built up in himself to listen to Boyd, to _only_ listen to Boyd, and he jerks his hands up, grabs haphazardly at Boyd’s arm. His heart is pounding and his mouth is open, working still to try and form the words. The kiss on his neck, and the one on his arm, and the other on his thigh burn painfully hot and down to his bones.

Boyd bends over him, somehow still smiling. He touches his face and there lies some relief, but not enough. “What is it?” Boyd asks him sweetly. “Try baby. I’m listening.”

Raylan’s eyes shoot to Winona, to her fearful expression, the tension in her arms and legs. She is trying to get away now. She doesn’t belong here. She shouldn’t--

Boyd turns his face back and Raylan looks up into his black eyes. He says the word, “ _Don’t_ ,” right before he plunges back into them.

All his pain melts away suddenly, like it never was, and he smiles because Boyd is smiling at him, is caressing his face. “You’re so strong, Raylan,” Boyd murmurs. Raylan beams at his praise. He feels strong when Boyd is near. “Don’t what?” he asks idly.

Raylan blinks. He’s not sure anymore. He huffs, feeling forgetful and strange. “Do whatever you want, Boyd,” he says.

He hears a muffled sob to his right and he turns to it--Winona. He’d forgotten she was here. Boyd straightens, though his hand lingers across Raylan's cheek. “What are you going to do?” she heaves the words between cries. 

“Tell her, baby,” Boyd says.

Raylan smiles. He says, “Boyd changes you.” 

Boyd reaches for her, and she tries to jerk away. She lets out a strangled scream, and Boyd draws her to him fast, clamping a hand across her mouth. "Now, now," he says softly. Raylan leans forward from where he sits to rest his head against Boyd's side. "No, no," Boyd murmurs. "Right here. At me."

Winona exhales loudly through her nose and Raylan knows Boyd's slipped his hand from her mouth because it comes to rest, lightly, on his hair. "Look, baby." Raylan lifts his eyes.

Winona's eyes, pretty and blue, are wide and fixed on Boyd's mouth. His teeth have grown sharp, the way that Raylan loves and his eyes are red as well as black. Winona's hand has risen, tentatively, to touch Boyd's shoulder and her mouth is parted, almost rapturously. She wants him now, like Raylan did, stumbling, confused, before Boyd changed him. Now Raylan wants him sharp, constant. It's so much better. Now, he wants that for her.

"You like the danger, don't you?" Boyd asks her.

"Uh huh," she moans. Her hand drops down, trying to press between her legs, but Boyd grabs it, lightening quick and she whimpers.

"But you can't take it," Boyd croons, almost contemptuously. "So, you left him."

Winona shakes her head slowly. Raylan thinks the question must be beyond her in this moment. He thinks, right now, she's just for Boyd.

"Your mind wants the picket fence." Boyd tells her. "But your body wants the gun. What does your heart want, I wonder?"

She wants to be closer to him, Raylan knows. She's leaning near.

"You want me to kiss you?" he asks.

She moans, "Yes," and he touches her neck. Raylan watches, almost happily, or something close to that--contentedly. She must feel so warm. She must feel so good.

But Boyd's eyes turn hard suddenly, and his teeth grow very sharp. He grabs her by the jaw and he looks her straight in the eye as he says, "Too bad, honey. Now, tell me again what you came here for."

"To help Raylan," she says, as though she's reading a line off a page--like she does in the courtroom. If it please the court.

"Raylan doesn't need your help," Boyd says. "Raylan is fine."

"Raylan is fine," she repeats.

"Forget about Raylan. He's none of your concern anymore."

Raylan watches a strange blankness fall across Winona's expression as she parrots Boyd's words back to him.

"Go home to your husband--what is his name?"

"Gary," she murmurs, something like a smile emerging from the fog. "Home to Gary."

"That's right," Boyd says with finality, stepping away to let her pass as she walks forward and away from them. "That's what you want." He smirks and adds, "For now." He turns to Raylan, but slides his hand again across Raylan's face, keeping his eyes on Winona's retreating back. "Watch her go," Boyd tells him. "I did that for you, Raylan. Because you wanted it."

Raylan frowns as the door closes behind her. He doesn't remember that. He thought she would love Boyd's kiss.

"It's all right, baby. We're gonna work on it." Boyd climbs up onto Raylan's lap as he's still sitting at the edge of his bed. Boyd's hands seem to weave strings of thrumming pleasure around his head. Boyd hasn't even kissed him yet, but oh, how he wants it. "I want you to remember one thing about tonight, Raylan," Boyd's voice is hovering over him. "Winona's got her own life now and so do you. You remember, she don't need to be part of yours. And that it's better this way."

Raylan opens his eyes and grins because Boyd's eyes are beautiful, dark like cut coal, or like a starless night. "Okay, Boyd," he says.

"And maybe," Boyd murmurs, his voice going raw with the sharpness of his teeth, "someday _you_ will take her, huh?"

Raylan doesn't know what he means by that, but he doesn't wonder for long, because Boyd has kissed him, sharp and sweet, and love is flowing out of him and pooling in Boyd's mouth. Raylan's eyes close and he keens with it, giving all that Boyd wants. Everything is sharp and bright and utterly beautiful.

"You're mine now," Boyd says from somewhere above him, slowly falling to his ear, hushed and intimate. "You remembered that, Raylan, even when you were trying to forget. I'm so pleased. You're so strong, Raylan. You'll be mine forever, baby."

Raylan has fallen back onto his bed, letting the blissful haze of Boyd buoy him. He barely thinks, can't really, about Boyd’s words, other than how pretty they sound. How right. 

"You want me to kiss you again?" Boyd asks.

Raylan speaks without thought. "Always."

Three weeks later, Winona’s typing up a deposition in the Marshal’s meeting room. Raylan and Art are both there. When she’s finished, she packs up her little typewriter and her papers and she slips out fast, with a small smile and a, “Bye, Art,” but nothing at all for Raylan.

Art gives him an assessing look.

“What?” Raylan asks. it’s his new favorite word, apparently.

Art leads Raylan into his office through the glass door in the meeting room. “That was a bit cold,” he observes. “I thought you two were okay. After that shit with her husband and that shady guy.”

Art only knew about it because Raylan was present, oh, and because he’d called the shooting in.

Raylan shrugs. He tells Art the truth as he knows it, and now, as she does too. “We’re okay. We just ain’t friends.”


End file.
